1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for reconstructing an embedded software development environment and, more particularly, to an apparatus and method for reconstructing an embedded software development environment, which provides an embedded software developer with a development environment that enables the developer to rapidly develop embedded software by conveniently utilizing tools suitable for embedded system targets and projects appropriate for embedded software application characteristics.
2. Description of the Related Art
An embedded system refers to a system in which hardware and software have been combined so that predetermined tasks can be performed in a specific product or solution. For example, embedded systems may be installed in household electronic appliances, such as a refrigerator and a washing machine, automobiles, medical equipment, and communication equipment.
Meanwhile, an embedded system is not composed of only circuits, but further includes embedded software that performs a specific function using a microprocessor. For example, a washing machine may perform washing functionality while taking into account the type of clothing, the amount of clothing to be washed, the temperature of laundry water, etc. using embedded software.
In order to rapidly develop such embedded software, a variety of software development tools are being utilized. Since such software development tools cannot be applied to all types of embedded systems because of the characteristics of the embedded software development environment, a developer is required to make the additional effort of personally searching for, selecting and utilizing tools that support the embedded system to be developed.
Furthermore, existing software development tools manage developed software as project resources which are dependent on respective tools. Moreover, since pieces of embedded software that have a similar configuration are used when the application fields that embedded systems provide are similar to each other, it is common for embedded software to be developed by modifying previously developed embedded software that falls within the field of the related application.
However, when developers utilize software development tools, there is the inconvenience that they should manually determine the details of created projects for respective development tools and then utilize them.